Environment

Bengaluru: The two mega drinking water projects planned by successive governments, the Ettinahole and the Mekedatu project, will prove to be a death warrant for the last remaining animal habitats in Karnataka's Western Ghats and the Cauvery Sanctuary.&nbsp;
Environmentalists have warned that the sinking of 12,000 acres of the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary and the Ettinahole project will strike the very heart of the Western Ghats.
However, opposition Congress has declared it as a mission to implement the Mekedatu project for providing drinking water to Bengaluru and the surrounding areas. The Congress state President D.K. Shivakumar has repeatedly stated that the implementation of the Mekedatu project was inevitable and as soon as his party comes to power it will be implemented without any further delay.
The Ettinahiole project involving the diversion of rivers was mooted by the BJP government headed by former CM D.V. Sadananda Gowda. "Both projects will destroy the core area and heighten the man-human conflict," explains retired senior bureaucrat and environmentalist Dr A.N. Yallappa Reddy.
Talking to IANS, Yallappa Reddy explained that the vast virgin forest region is the only place where elephants flock. This is the regular corridor for elephants from time immemorial. This is called 'Gaja Aranya' (elephant forests) and 'Dandakaranya' (thick forests), he said.
No one is thinking about recycling of water, which can solve the drinking water problem in Bengaluru. "I have been observing the developments since 1962 as I was a bureaucrat. The human activities not only in the core areas of the forests but in the periphery have increased.
"Core areas of forests, which are breeding centers of the wild animals, have been lost. The mining activities, hydro-electric projects, mini-hydro-electric projects have completely fragmented the forest area. The government is liberal in allowing plunder. Vast areas of the ecosystem have been wiped out and the core forest area is severely fragmented.
"The Forest Conservation Act and guidelines have been diluted by the government. The mining has made the perennial water flows and the water holes from where wildlife got the water, extinct. The Karnataka government during the tenure of Late Ramakrishna Hegde had given 78 lakh hectares for the forest department. Tragically, the present government is planning to take back 6 lakh acres.
"The people who are taking forest lands are not tribes, but they are the powerful landlords who have considerable influence. They indulge in plantation, mining and commercial activities," Yallappa Reddy explains.
The Bannerghatta National Park near Bengaluru was notified in 1978. Nearly 100 square kilometers of forests of Bannerghatta have been destroyed. It was the biggest habitat for elephants. The elephants used to traverse in the corridor from Tamil Nadu, Biligirirangana Betta in Chamarajanagar and reach Bengaluru. They also reached elephant camps in Mysuru district and mated with tamed female elephants.
"The famous group of five tuskers was called the Rowdy Ranga gang. The group dominated for 12 years. Recently, there was a media report, where a group of elephants entered a godown in Hassan, broke open the door and carried rice bags into the forests. This is disturbing and indicative of future human-animal conflict," Yallappa Reddy says.
Yallappa Reddy has filed a PIL before the Supreme Court regarding the loss of the forest land. The court is yet to take up the petition. "I rendered my services as the Secretary of the Environment Department. I am hopeful that the Apex court takes up the inquiry," he says.&nbsp;
—IANS

The two mega drinking water projects planned by successive governments, the Ettinahole and the Mekedatu project, will prove to be a death warrant for the last remaining animal habitats in Karnataka's Western Ghats and the Cauvery Sanctuary. 

 Bengaluru drinking water projects threaten only wildlife habitat in K'taka

Wildlife

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government constituted an expert committee on August 22 to study the increasing conflict between humans and elephants, especially in the Gudalur area, and to come up with practical solutions to the issue.
The committee headed by Conservator of Forests and Madhumalai Tiger Reserve Field Director, D. Venkatesh has commenced the study on the basic reasons behind the man-elephant conflict.
In May two people lost their lives on successive days. A 40-year-old woman who had gone to attend to nature's call in the early hours was trampled to death by a wild elephant. The woman Malu (42) was killed on May 27,
On May 26, Anandan (51) was killed by a wild elephant when he was going to open his tea stall at Gudalur at around 5.30 a.m.
In August before the committee was constituted, Murugan (46), a forest watcher, was trampled to death by a wild elephant when he had gone to the forest border to relieve himself.
People losing their lives in areas close to the forest borders has been reported regularly in Tamil Nadu with an average of 35 to 40 being killed in a year.
The forest department had to resort to bringing in two Kumki elephants to drive the wild elephant into the deep forest. The expert committee is studying all the possibilities to solve the vexed issue.
While the stories of elephants killing humans have been reported widely, many wild elephants also lost their lives due to human intervention in their habitats.
Three wild elephants were mowed down by the speeding Mangalore- Chennai Express on November 26, 2021. After this incident, the forest department and Southern Railway planned to jointly operate a wireless system to prevent the elephants from reaching the railway lines running through deep forests.
A 20-year-old male elephant was also hit by a moving train prior to this in March 2021; in the past five years eight elephants have been killed by trains. After the mowing down of three elephants on November 26, the forest department of Tamil Nadu and Southern Railways took several measures to discourage elephants from coming near the tracks.
The expert committee is of the view that most of the elephant attacks on human habitations was in search of food. The Kerala forest department has recently taken a policy decision to plant jack fruit trees inside forests as jack fruit is like a magnet to the elephants.
The department also envisages planting wild mango trees and wild gooseberry trees. According to the Kerala forest officials this will help in stopping elephants, monkeys and other wild animals from entering human habitations in search of food.
A recent study by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, and the Periyar Tiger Conservation Foundation has revealed that the major reason for the human-elephant conflict is the reduced availability of fodder in the forests. The study also revealed the reduction in fodder was mainly due to the presence of invasive plants that shrink the fodder.
However, some senior officials of the Tamil Nadu forest department told IANS that human-elephant conflict has always been there but the increased reporting has led to bringing such issues before society in large numbers.&nbsp;
—IANS

The Tamil Nadu government constituted an expert committee on August 22 to study the increasing conflict between humans and elephants, especially in the Gudalur area, and to come up with practical solutions to the issue.

Man vs tuskers: TN committee initiates study to find solution

Kolkata: In June this year, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directed the West Bengal government to immediately close down all hotels, camping sites, homestays,
lodges and restaurants within the Buxa Tiger Reserve, currently in Alipurduar district and earlier in undivided Jalpaiguri district in the northern part of the state. The NGT order gave hope to environmentalists that this is the first positive move for freeing the jungles not only in Buxa but the entire north Bengal of human encroachments.
However, almost three months have passed since the NGT order, and the activists allege that the judgement has not been honoured in its true spirit and tourism activities within the core area are still being carried out albeit in a reduced manner. They also allege negligence on the part of the state government in putting in place a proper displacement and
rehabilitation policy for the tribal population in the villages within the core areas.
Speaking to IANS, environmental rights activist Dr Raja Raut said that although after the NGT order the state government has
taken some steps to limit tourism within the Buxa Tiger Reserve, the order has not been implemented in its true spirit.
"Although night stays within the reserve forest area have been banned after the NGT order, some lodges with dining arrangements are still operating during the day till sunset. And with these arrangements continuing, the tourists flock, play music, litter food and food packets which continue to affect the natural ambience of the forest. We along with other environment activists had intimated the state forest department several times and what we got are just assurances. I understand that the state government is promoting tourism and homestay culture in north Bengal. But it cannot be at the cost of the natural ambience of the jungle," Raut said.
Besides the Royal Bengal tiger the fauna of Buxa Tiger Reserve, a part of which is also in neighbouring Bhutan, includes elephants, leopards, giant squirrels, chital deer, wild boar and
Indian dhole.
Raut said the continued existence of around 100 small forest villages within the core forest areas scattered over the three districts in north Bengal, namely Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Darjeeling is yet another hurdle in making the core forest
areas totally free of human encroachment. "These are extremely small forest villages housing hardly 1,000 to 1,200 families. I do not think that rehabilitation of these families is a difficult task. But I think some political interference poses hurdles in that rehabilitation process," Raut said.
According to forest minister Jyotipriyo Mullick, the state government is keen on rehabilitating the population in the forest villages and talks are going on in this regard.
However, there is a technical hitch since these forest villagers mostly do not have land rights and it is often difficult for the state government to offer rehabilitation packages under the existing legal framework.
Mullick added that the state government has urged the Union government to share the compensation burden. "We expect the rehabilitation package to be finalised soon," he said.
On the issue of the continuing day time operations of some homestays, he said that he will ask his officials to look into the matter.
However, a senior state forest official, on condition of anonymity said that ensuring a 100 per cent closure of all tourism-related commercial operations in the forest areas like
homestays and restaurants is not an easy task. "As it is, entry
restrictions in the core area have left the local villagers fuming since that was an important source of income. The people have invested in setting up homestays after the state
government encouraged that. Now the overnight closing down of all operations will antagonize them," the official said.
He said that unless the state government arranges for alternative sources of income for these villagers besides
giving them a one-time compensation, displacing them from the core areas will be an uphill task.&nbsp;
—IANS

In June this year, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directed the West Bengal government to immediately close down all hotels, camping sites, homestays,

 Homestays, relocation of forest villages constant threats to Buxa Tiger Reserve

New Delhi: Amidst the governments increased focus on conservation of wildlife, instances of human-animal conflict have resulted in loss of life of both humans and animals over the years.
As per the information from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, between 2018-19 and 2020-21, a total of 29 tigers were killed by poachers while the deaths of 197 tigers was under scrutiny. A large number of elephants also died due to various reasons including electrocution and others. The data said that a total of 222 elephants died by electrocution across the country, 45 in train collisions, 29 were killed by poachers and 11 by poisoning during the same period.
On the other side, a large number of humans also became victims of the conflict leading to their deaths. Elephants killed 1,579 humans in three years – 585 in 2019-20, 461 in 2020-21, and 533 in 2021-22. So far as the states are concerned, Odisha recorded the highest number of these deaths at 322, followed by Jharkhand at 291, West Bengal at 240, Assam at 229, Chhattisgarh at 183 and Tamil Nadu at 152.
So far as the deaths of elephants are concerned, out of the 222 elephant deaths caused by electrocution, Odisha recorded 41, Tamil Nadu 34 and Assam 33. Odisha (12 out of 45) also had the highest number of elephant deaths caused by trains, followed by West Bengal (11) and Assam (9). Poaching deaths were the highest in Meghalaya (12 out of 29) while poisoning deaths were the highest in Assam (9 out of 11, including 8 in 2018-19 alone).
The Ministry in a Parliament reply on July 25 said that assessments of human-wildlife conflicts indicate that their main causes include habitat loss, growth in the population of wild animals, changing cropping patterns that attract wild animals to farmlands, movement of wild animals from forest areas to human dominated landscapes for food and fodder, movement of human beings to forests for illegal collection of forest produce, habitat degradation due to growth of invasive alien species and others.
The Parliament standing committee on Environment and Forests in its March, 2022 report took note of the human-animal conflict observing that the cases of man-animal conflict are on the rise and it still remains an area of concern. “As such, there is an urgent need to minimize the instances of man-animal conflict that was resulting in both human and animal killings,” it said.
The Committee recommended that the Ministry should take proactive steps to sustainably manage and minimise man-animal conflict in a balanced manner, whereby the wildlife habitat is improved. “The Committee urges upon the Ministry to evolve a mechanism at the national level for uniform compensation, early settlement of compensation and rehabilitation of the victims of man-animal conflict. The Committee recommends that efforts should be made by the Ministry at local level and especially among the communities living in peripheral forest areas to sensitise them towards ecological balance through co-existence with wildlife,” it said.
As per the Ministry, financial assistance is provided by the Ministry to States/Union Territories under the centrally sponsored schemes of ‘Development of Wildlife Habitats’, ‘Project Tiger’ and ‘Project Elephant’ for activities like creation and maintenance of water holes for wild animals in the protected areas, soil and moisture conservation measures, establishment of anti-poaching camps, strengthening wildlife veterinary care, eradication of weeds, creation and maintenance of fire lines, deployment of Tiger Protection Force and others.
Critical elephant habitats are notified as ‘Elephant Reserve’ for focus and synergy in elephant conservation and to reduce conflict. The notification is carried out with the approval of the Steering Committee formed in the Ministry. So far 31 Elephant Reserves have been established in 14 major elephant states.
Similarly, the National Tiger Conservation Authority has issued Standard Operating Procedures to deal with emergencies arising due to straying of tigers into human dominated landscapes and tiger depredation on livestock and for active management towards rehabilitation of tigers from source areas at the landscape level.&nbsp;
—IANS

Amidst the governments increased focus on conservation of wildlife, instances of human-animal conflict have resulted in loss of life of both humans and animals over the years.

 Elephants, tigers main victims of rising human-animal conflict

New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Centre and Kerala government to file a compliance report within six months on the reported construction of a mega car parking facility and a football ground inside the Periyar Tiger Reserve allegedly without sanctions.&nbsp;
The southern bench of NGT comprising Justice K. Ramakrishnan and expert member Satyagopal Korlapati was dealing with two similar applications filed by different persons alleging violation of provisions of the Forest Act, Forest (Conservation) Act, and other allied Acts dealing with the National Tiger Conservation project.
After the submissions, the tribunal asked the Centre to respond as to whether the repair and formation of the football ground can be treated as a forest right under Section 3 (2) of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, and to reply on its impact on the wildlife.
The tribunal also 'deprecated the attitude' of the applicant for not mentioning the entire facts in the application, including the existence of a tribal settlement and the vacant area, as seen from Google image etc.
The Chief Secretary of the state was also directed to produce all the relevant documents, including from the Vigilance Department on the matter.
From the vigilance report, it was revealed that as per the Conservator of Forest, (I&amp;E), Kottayam, all the works related to the construction of the football ground were done violating the existing forest and wildlife legislations, the applicant had argued.
The Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary covering an area of 925 sq km in Idukki district was declared as Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in 1978.
Kerala obtained approval from the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for tiger conservation plan as per an order dated March 21, 2013, for the purpose of conservation of tigers in the reserve and for other purposes.
While approving the Tiger Conservation Plan, NTCA had clearly stated that the project shall not overrule the existing laws in the country, especially the Indian Forest Act, 1927, Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
The plea alleged that in the guise of the sanction order, the state Department of Tourism wanted to develop the area and make certain constructions in the tiger reserve, and constructed a mega car parking facility at Anavachal.
It further pointed at another activity, wherein a football ground was being developed near the Vanchivayal tribal settlement area under Vallakkadavu range inside the core area of Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR), a crucial zone of the forest where tigers are sited frequently.
The forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribe namely Urali community of Vanchivayal tribal colony is located in the buffer zone of the tiger reserve, and they are included in the buffer area as per a 2011 notification of the state government.
The tribal representative denied the allegations that the authorities were taking steps to convert the core area located in Periyar Tiger Reserve as a playground. The open ground is not a part of the core area of Periyar Tiger Reserve, he said.
The tribal colony is inhabited by 76 tribal families since 1940 and located inside the forests and around 3.5 km away from the nearby public road. Most of the families of the tribal colony earn their livelihood through organic agriculture, particularly the cultivation of pepper.
Till two decades ago, they had been living in complete drudgery and penury and suffered heavily at the hands of middlemen till the Periyar Tiger Reserve management intervened with the constitution of a tribal eco-development committee, as per the locals.
On the other hand, the petitioner argued that in both the cases the Google image produced along with the documents will go to show that they have enlarged the area for the purpose of expanding, though claimed to be an existing playground to a larger extent and a football tournament was also conducted which is not a permissible activity even assuming that the tribal community has got any right under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
It also produced additional documents to establish that heavy machinery was used for the purpose of removal of mud, and the nature of publicity made for conducting the football tournament, and the presence of people at the time of the tournament.
The state government argued that it is part of the buffer zone of Vanchivayal tribal settlement colony situated within the Periyar Tiger Reserve area and it is not within the core area and this area is being used as a common place for gathering for festivals, marriages etc.
The state authorities said that the said notification of buffer area states that to promote the co-existence between wildlife and humans with due recognition to livelihood, developmental, social and cultural rights of local people, the area of Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary kept out of the critical tiger habitat is now declared as buffer area to the critical tiger habitat.
During the 2018-19 floods, a huge sand deposit was made in that area, and even in 2017, Gram Sabha of the tribal settlement community had resolved to repair the playground and that was forwarded to the Eco Development Committee and with the funds available with the committee, repair works were undertaken.
No additional area has been added and no trees were cut for these purposes. Any irregularities committed therein is being inquired into by the government and appropriate action will be taken against the officials, if there are any serious irregularities against the provisions committed by the officials.
The green court observed that though representations were made, no action was taken is the complaint made by the applicant in both the cases.&nbsp;
—IANS&nbsp;

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Centre and Kerala government to file a compliance report within six months on the reported construction of a mega car parking facility and a football ground inside the Periyar Tiger Reserve allegedly without sanctions. 

 NGT red flags football ground, building activity inside Periyar Tiger Reserve

Kullu: Amid the presence of the highly-endangered western tragopan pheasant and a good population of the wide-roaming snow leopard, with a bulk of its occurrence reported outside protected areas when the harsh winter forces prey mammals to migrate to lower altitudes, authorities of the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP), a UNECSO World Heritage site in the northwestern Himalayas, fear for their vulnerability.
The authorities rely on local people for gathering intelligence and safeguarding the wild flora and fauna species.
Ahead of the onset of winter, the authorities gear up to protect Western Himalayan biodiversity that comprise many medicinal herbs, 31 mammal and 209 bird species, mainly from mountain settlements in 16 panchayats in the buffer zone called an eco-zone of the park.
"We have started the process to deploy sufficient staff for group patrolling to check poaching during the winter," Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Nishant Mandhotra, who is in-charge of GHNP, told IANS.
He said that camera trapping devices will be installed in at least 20 highly-sensitive locations mainly in Tirthan-Sainj regions.
Besides monitoring the movement of animals, the camera devices play a crucial role in keeping a tab on poachers who are largely locals owing to tough topography.
"Since most of the villagers have licensed guns for protection of self and crops, the chances of using them for poaching are high despite the ban on hunting. Historically, village communities depend on natural resources, especially during the harsh winters when foodstuff depletes, we prefer to hire locals to minimise chances of game hunting," he added.
By engaging with the local villagers and understanding their socio-economic needs, the park authorities turned the people into 'guardians' from 'hunters'.
The GNHP, notified in 1999, is home to 203 bird species, including the western tragopan, the Himalayan monal, the koklas, the white-crested kalij and the cheer, all pheasant species.
The park is located in Banjar subdivision of Kullu district in the far Western Himalayas.
Four of GHNP's mammal species and three of its bird species are globally threatened, including the musk deer and the western horned tragopan.
With the inclusion of Sainj and Tirthan Wildlife Sanctuaries, the total area, known as the Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area, spreads to 1,171 sq km.
Former Deputy Ranger Roshan Chaudhary said that human settlements pose the greatest threat to the park's fauna and flora species, besides illicit felling.
Chaudhary, the longest serving official who retired on December 31, 2021, after serving the GHNP in various capacities for 33 years, told IANS that other threats to the park include agriculture, traditional grazing and hydropower development.
He said that most of the trekking routes are closely regulated by camera trapping devices.
Locals often venture into forests in groups to collect the expensive herbs. They stay for weeks to collect them.
"They are posing a serious challenge as they are familiar with the local typography and are even sturdy compared to outside poachers," said Chaudhary, who trekked the rugged and inaccessibility park known for its significant size of 1,171 sq km on several occasions while separated from home and family for weeks or even months.
The park's eco-zone has some 160 villages and hamlets, while the boundaries are connected to the Pin Valley National Park, the Rupi-Bhawa Wildlife Sanctuary and the Kanawar Wildlife Sanctuary.
Park authorities normally involve locals in conservation of biodiversity at the park. Besides protecting it from the poachers, they are playing an important role for managing sustainable eco-sensitive or nature-based eco-tourism.
Ecotourism Facilitator Govind Thakur told IANS that tourism in the GHNP is expected to recover to 2019 levels in 2023.
"After two years of hiatus owing to the pandemic, three months from April this year were good for eco-tourism. On normal occasions, we get tourists in October and November also. This year it seems negligible as there is hardly any advance booking," he said.
The Tirthan sanctuary is the preferred destination for eco-tourism.
One of the richest biodiversity sites in the Western Himalayas, the GHNP supports the snow leopard, the Tibetan wolf, the Himalayan brown and black bear, the Himalayan blue sheep, the Asiatic ibex, the red fox, the weasel and the yellow throated marten.
The small mammals include the grey shrew, a small mouse-like mammal with a long snout, royal mountain vole, Indian pika, giant Indian flying squirrel, porcupine and the Himalayan palm civet, besides nine amphibians and 125 insects.
Talking about the man-animal conflict, Chaudhary told IANS that animals in the wild mostly avoid any encounters with the humans -- and when they do attack people, it is usually in self-defence.
He said that the snow leopard also needs protection from pastoral communities in alpine pastures.
"The park supports a good population of the snow leopard with a sizable population of its prey species like the Asiatic ibex and the Himalayan blue sheep," said Chaudhary, who had face-to-face encounters with the common leopard and the brown bear several times.
"The wild animals rarely attack humans. They attack only when the people disturb them. I have spent nights in their habitat with just a rucksack carrying a raincoat, cap, sleeping bag and an LED torch and they just passed by my rucksack without bothering me."
"Man-animal conflicts are more of a social issue. For the conservation of wildlife, you need cooperation of local communities," added Chaudhary, who belongs to Banjar, located on the periphery of the GHNP.
Wildlife officials told IANS that with the harsh winter, freezing water resources and wiping out food sources, herds of hoofed wild mammals start moving to lower altitudes. Other forms of wildlife, mainly predators, follow them.
The migration of the Asiatic ibex - a wild goat species -, the goral and the Himalayan blue sheep or 'bharal' in lower elevations is common.
"The anti-poaching teams do random patrolling on identified routes. The teams comprise local people, who are familiar with routes and sensitive areas and play an important role in gathering intelligence," DFO Mandhotra said, adding that "this also enable them to sustain livelihood when they are free from agriculture".
The ban on donning a cap with a pheasant monal crest, once a tradition in the upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh, especially on auspicious occasions, greatly helped reduce its poaching in the park.
"The sighting of Himalayan brown goral in the village increases during winter," Gian Thakur, a villager in the Tirthan Valley, told IANS over phone.
Even sightings of the common fox increases in human habitations, he added.&nbsp;
—IANS

Amid the presence of the highly-endangered western tragopan pheasant and a good population of the wide-roaming snow leopard, with a bulk of its occurrence reported outside protected areas when the harsh winter forces prey mammals to migrate to lower altitudes, authorities of the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP), a UNECSO World Heritage site in the northwestern Himalayas, fear for their vulnerability.

 To protect biodiversity, Himachal park authorities turn 'hunters' into 'saviours'

Kolkata: In several pockets in West Bengal, be it Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Bagdogra in the North or Bankura, Purulia and Jhargram in the South, news about human-elephant conflict have been quite common for the last few years.
Such conflicts have been on the rise, following the increasing expansion of human establishments to the favourite corridors of the elephants.
In the case of North Bengal, the tea gardens and the growing human habitations around them are the main hurdles. In South Bengal, the presence of railway tracks and agricultural fields, among others create obstructions to the hindrance-free passage of the tuskers.
Despite several meetings between senior officials of the state forest department, union ministry of environment and forests and the Railways, among others, no long term solution to this problem has emerged.
The state forest department is banking on two proposed projects that it is hoping will minimize the incidents of human-elephant conflict. According to forest minister Jyotipriyo Mullick, the first project is setting up dedicated elephant corridors in North Bengal covering mainly the forest belts of Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Bagdogra and Bankura, Purulia and Jhargram in South Bengal.
"The project to be implemented at a cost of Rs 620 crore would be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the project work is expected to start by November this year," Mullick said.
The second project, according to the minister, is the appointment of 600 local youths from these pockets as Gajamitras (friends of elephants).
"The process of recruitment will start shortly and after recruitment they will be specially trained by an expert agency and then inducted into the state forest department. They
will be provided with special android sets with a specialized Gajamitra app developed for that purpose installed. These Gajamitras will procure advance information about the movement of elephant herds, alert the state forest department and local people, so that preventive measures can be taken for avoiding human-elephant conflict," the minister said. He added that of the 600 new recruitments, 200 will be for areas in South Bengal and 400 for North Bengal.
However, former principal chief conservator of forests in West Bengal Atanu Raha sounded sceptical about the ground-level implementation and effectiveness of the projects especially the one related to dedicated elephant corridors.
According to him, the main difficulty in setting up such corridors is getting long stretches of land that are free of human encroachment and also have enough food for the tuskers. He said that there are already human habitations in forest land especially the ones that connect one forest with the other. "I really doubt how far the displacement of these encroachments will be feasible and unless it is done the dedicated elephant corridors will not serve the purpose of restricting human- elephant conflict," Raha said.
He explained why elephants often invade human habitations for food.
"These tuskers are excellent food managers. They know that they can compensate for the daily food requirement of around 300 kg of jungle flora with just 50 kilograms of paddy. So, if there is not enough food reserve for them in the proposed corridors, these elephants will invade human habitations in search of food," he explained.
However, he was positive about the "friends of elephants" scheme. "Advance information about an approaching elephant herd is surely a good proposal for taking precautionary measures to avoid human-tusker conflict as far as possible," he said.
According to him, ideally the state government should put in place a proper compensation scheme in case of damage to crops, residences or even loss of lives of the local people because of
this human-elephant conflict.
"The schemes for compensation are there. But the problem lies in the exorbitant delay in payment of compensation, which often antagonises the people and they try to prevent these elephants from invading human habitation using methods like electrified wires around the agricultural fields. Without making the people aware no scheme will work to successfully restrict human-elephant conflict. And to create awareness there is the necessity of ensuring timely payment of adequate compensation," Raha added.&nbsp;
—IANS

In several pockets in West Bengal, be it Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Bagdogra in the North or Bankura, Purulia and Jhargram in the South, news about human-elephant conflict have been quite common for the last few years.

 'Elephant corridors', 'Gajamitra' scheme key to cutting WB human-tusker faceoffs

Jaipur: Do you know India once had 1,00,000 tigers? Over the years, this number kept dwindling as Britishers and the erstwhile maharajas took up hunting. Meanwhile, no comprehensive law was in place to look after the wildlife till the 1960s even as widespread hunting of tigers was reported all over India, says wildlife expert Harshwardhan.
Queen Elizabeth II of Britain along with her consort, Prince Phillip, who visited Ranthambore in the early 60s reportedly to hunt tigers, was hosted royally by the then government, he said.
Then came Project Tiger (PT) in 1973 where the WWF-International assumed a lead role and clueless forest officers adopted a fudging tactic to show increasing tiger numbers.
Even now, things have not changed and the tiger faces yet another challenge -- its forest cover is shrinking thereby increasing man-animal conflict.
Almost 10-15 tigers and tigresses are roaming outside almost all the best breeding reserves in India as dominant males do not allow newly-born, young and sub-adult males to remain inside the park, he added.
These vagrant tigers face tough challenges in their newly adopted 'homes' which are people by villagers and their livestock.
The additional population of tigers inside the reserves therefore is getting rehabilitated outside the reserves.
Further, tiger corridors are missing. The outcome: many tigers are killed by the villagers, or get knocked down in road accidents and mishaps.
In fact, Rajasthan famous for its tigers and jungle safaris, is in the news these days for the skewed gender ratio, tigers' fight for survival and missing tigers reports.
The Rajasthan Assembly recently discussed the issue of 13 missing tigers from Ranthambore Tiger Reserve (RTR).
The state forest department said that it has no evidence of 13 tigers in Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in the past three years -- January 2019 to January 2022 -- while answering a question related to missing tigers which was raised by state BJP president Satish Poonia. The forest department stated that among these 13 tigers, no evidence has been found of two tigers (T-20 and T-23) since 2019, seven tigers (T-47, T-42, T-64, T-73, T-95, T-97 and T-92 ) since 2020 and four tigers ( T-72, T-62, T-126 and T-100) since 2021.
While four out of these 13 tigers were old, it is possible that the others may have died naturally, fled from their territory due to high density of tigers or died in territorial clashes with other tigers, it said.
Among the 13 tigers, nine were from the Ranthambore core area and two were from the Ranthambore buffer area. The other two lived in the Kailadevi reserve forest outside the RTR, the data showed.
In its reply, the government said that due to the increase in their population and density around Ranthambore, more cases relating to missing tigers, territorial fights between tigers and deaths have surfaced.
The ratio between male and female tigers in RTR is 1:1.3, which is unnatural. Most of the tigers, out of the 32 females, at present in the breeding age have also contributed to an increased population, the data said.
"The tiger population has increased in Ranthambore and we have already passed the carrying capacity. There are around 55 mature tigers while as per our carrying capacity, we have space for around 40-45 mature tigers only. As a result of this overpopulation, tigers migrate or end up fighting with other tigers in territorial battles," said a senior forest official.
PS Somashekar, a retired forest officer from Rajasthan said, "We might see the big cat numbers growing, but in reality, we are losing the battle."
"There was a time when the stories of man-animal coexistence sounded real. This was in the 70s and 80s but now it is a thing of the past. The development of areas around jungles, four-lane highways, electricity, sound of bikes and jeeps many a times prompt these animals to come out of their peripheries."
As the tiger is a carnivore, it needs regular movement from one area to another, however, we have created obstructions in its movement area, he said.
"The government land has been converted into agricultural land, agricultural land into commercial land and so on. Hence when the animal moves into corridor areas, it gets confused on seeing four-lane highways, dazzling lights and sounds, leading to conflict," Somashekar said.&nbsp;
—IANS

Do you know India once had 1,00,000 tigers? Over the years, this number kept dwindling as Britishers and the erstwhile maharajas took up hunting. Meanwhile, no comprehensive law was in place to look after the wildlife till the 1960s even as widespread hunting of tigers was reported all over India, says wildlife expert Harshwardhan.

 Despite success of Project Tiger, national animal fights for survival

Washington: An international research team has used satellite data to demonstrate that concentrations of pollutant particles have decreased significantly since the year 2000. This is desirable due to their impact on health. But it is also of great significance for another reason, since it has reduced the particles' cooling effect on the climate.
Global warming is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by 2019 the temperature had risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. However, at the same time, the combustion of fossil fuels emits aerosols, in the form of pollutant particles such as soot or sulfuric acid, which cool our climate. They reflect sunlight and also increase the reflectivity of clouds. According to the IPCC, the presence of aerosols in the atmosphere caused the climate to be 0.5 degrees Celsius cooler in 2019 than without them. Other effects such as land use change also play a role. Study documents widespread evidence of this reduced cooling climate effect
In a new international analysis, Professor Johannes Quaas, a meteorologist at Leipzig University, and colleagues from across Europe, China, and the US have now documented robust evidence of this effect on the climate of improved air quality. "We analysed data from NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. They have been providing comprehensive satellite observations of the Earth since the year 2000, measuring incoming and outgoing radiation, but also clouds and aerosol pollution. The latter has decreased significantly across North America, Europe and East Asia since 2000," says Professor Johannes Quaas, lead author of the study, which was initiated in a meeting by the two European research projects CONSTRAIN and FORCES.
Reduction in aerosol-induced cooling increases warming due to CO2 since 2000 by up to 50 per cent
This has also reduced the cooling effect of aerosols. Compared to the year 2000, it has led to an increase in the warming effect that is up to 50 per cent of the one by CO2 increases in the same period. This means an acceleration of the drivers of global warming compared to the previous period. "Our study should not be interpreted to mean that we should now be emitting more aerosols to cool the climate. On the contrary: aerosols are harmful to human health and the environment, which is why we need to keep reducing emissions," Quaas concludes. And it is why air quality legislation has become increasingly stringent since the 1970s and is being implemented by more and more countries. Professor Quaas and his colleagues on the new study stress the ever more urgent need for rapid and strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. —ANI

An international research team has used satellite data to demonstrate that concentrations of pollutant particles have decreased significantly since the year 2000. This is desirable due to their impact on health. But it is also of great significance for another reason, since it has reduced the particles' cooling effect on the climate.

Improved Air Quality Found To Have Accelerated Global Warming In Recent Decades: Research

Espoo (Finland): The production of feed for cattle and fish is consuming limited natural resources that could be utilised to create food for people, while millions of people throughout the world are in danger of going hungry or suffering from malnutrition.
Aalto University's latest study, which was just published in Nature Food, demonstrates how changing how livestock and fish are fed could maintain output while increasing the amount of food that is available to people. These relatively easy modifications will greatly expand the world's food supply, delivering calories for up to 13% more people without increasing the use of natural resources or needing significant dietary changes.
Currently, nearly a third of the yield of cereal crops is used as animal feed, and about a quarter of fish that are caught aren't used for human use. A team led by Matti Kummu, an associate professor of global water and food issues at Aalto, looked at the possibility of employing crop waste and food waste in livestock and aquaculture production, freeing up the material that may be used to feed people.
This was the first time that anyone had merged the food and feed flows from both terrestrial and aquatic systems in such great detail on a global scale. The first step in figuring out the untapped potential was to identify how much of the food by-products and residues were already being used, says Kummu.
The team examined how food and feed moved through the world's food production system, as well as how its byproducts and residues did. They then determined how to change these flows for a better result. For instance, rather than feeding cattle and farmed fish ingredients that are suitable for human consumption, food system by-products such as sugar beet or citrus pulp, fish and animal by-products, or even agricultural residues, could be used. With these adjustments, up to 10% to 26% of all cereal production and 11% of the present seafood supply, or 17 million tonnes of fish, maybe diverted from animal feed to human consumption. The increases in the food supply would range between 6 and 13 per cent in terms of calories and between 9 and 15 per cent in terms of protein, depending on the specific scenario. That might not seem like much, but Vilma Sandstrom of Aalto University, who is the study's first author, estimates that it would feed up to one billion people.
These results complement prior work by Kummu's team on minimising food loss along the supply chain, from manufacturing to storage and waste generated by consumers. In that study, we demonstrated that halving food loss and waste would result in a 12% increase in the amount of food available. That would add around one-quarter more food when combined with the use of byproducts as feed, he claims. There would be a decrease in animal productivity as a result of some of the modifications, such as feeding crop leftovers to livestock, but the researchers took that into account in their analysis. Another difficulty is that the human-edible food now employed in aquaculture and animal production differs from what people are accustomed to eating. For instance, several varieties of maize are utilised in the feed industry, and some of the grains are of lesser quality; meanwhile, the fish used to make fishmeal are typically small, bony fish that are not now well-liked by customers.
Overcoming these obstacles, though, might yield significant benefits. Supply chain changes would be necessary to get these benefits. For instance, the food chain would need to be reorganised so that businesses and producers with by-products can connect with those who raise animals and raise fish. Additionally, some of the byproducts would require processing before being used as feed, according to Sandstrom.
I don't see any major issues with doing this, in my opinion. It wouldn't be necessary to start from scratch because what we're proposing is already being done to some extent and in certain places. Simply tweaking the current system and scaling up those practices is all that is required, says Kummu. —ANI

The production of feed for cattle and fish is consuming limited natural resources that could be utilised to create food for people, while millions of people throughout the world are in danger of going hungry or suffering from malnutrition.

Research Reveals How Changes To Animal Feed Could Feed 1 Billion People

Gothenburg (Sweden): Planning is necessary to promote the sustainable development of marine habitats, just as there has long been spatial planning for operations on land. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg and other institutions are now demonstrating that marine planning must take climate change into account, which it does not at the moment. According to the researchers' calculations, temperature and salt content changes may affect ecosystems and species more than all other environmental factors combined.
A computer tool called Symphony has been around for a while. The distribution of significant ecosystems and species throughout Sweden's coastlines is depicted using GIS maps, along with how environmental disturbances like nutrient pollution, boat traffic, and fishing affect them in various regions. The maps are intended to help public authorities and other parties involved in marine planning define priorities and take various actions.
The current iteration of Symphony has the drawback of not taking future climate change into account. Researchers working on the ClimeMarine project have now examined what occurs when the tool is adjusted to account for anticipated variations in temperature and salt content.
According to Per Jonsson, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg and co-author of the study, "It indicated that the projected climate changes will raise the total environmental impact by at least fifty per cent, and in some locations, as much as several hundred per cent."
Maps reveal where climate change has the most impact
The GIS maps show how the effects of climate change vary for different geographical areas.
It is a clear indicator that additional influences may need to be minimised in order to lower the total rate of impact in some regions. According to Jonsson, we might consider, for instance, rerouting a shipping line or capping the expansion of marinas and recreational boating in areas with rare eelgrass meadows.
Additionally, the method enables the identification of areas that are anticipated to be less impacted by climate change, such as so-called upwelling areas like those off the coast of Gotland, where deep, cold water rises and cools the water at the surface. These areas can act as climate refugees, ensuring the survival of threatened species. "Marine reserves may be considered to protect these areas, where we 'remove' other factors that have an impact. Sweden has committed to establishing several new protected marine areas, and Symphony can help identify where they should be located."
We need more research on how ecosystems and species react
According to Per Jonsson, these projections are prone to flaws. Future temperature and salt content predictions are made using mathematical models that are always being updated and enhanced. In the future, we are unsure of what will happen to our carbon dioxide emissions. It's challenging to evaluate this political issue. We also need to comprehend the degree to which various ecosystems and species are vulnerable to climate change. To demonstrate what occurs as the temperature rises and the salt concentration falls, experimental experiments are required.
He is certain that climate change will have an impact on marine environments in the future even without these, though. "What we present in the study can be viewed as informed guesses based on the information we currently have. But the effects of a changing climate clearly must be incorporated into marine planning." —ANI

Planning is necessary to promote the sustainable development of marine habitats, just as there has long been spatial planning for operations on land.

Research: Climate Change May Impact Marine Environments Badly

Bhopal: Siblings Freddy and Alton, two of the eight cheetahs brought from Namibia, were seen frolicking in their quarantine enclosure in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park on Monday, a day after all of them were served food for the first time since their arrival in India.
Sisters Savannah and Sasha also looked cheerful.
The four other cheetahs -- Obaan, Asha, Cibili, Saisa -- also appeared in good spirits, KNP officials said.
The eight felines -- five female and three male and aged between 30 to 66 months -- were on Sunday evening served food for the first time since their arrival from the African country to India on Saturday, an official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday released these cheetahs brought from Namibia, 8,000 km away from their native place, into a quarantine enclosure at the KNP in Sheopur district as part of a project to revive the population of the animal which became extinct in India in 1952.
On Sunday evening, each of the eight cheetahs was served two kg of buffalo meat. Only one of them ate less, the official said, adding that there was nothing concerning about it. The cheetahs looked cheerful and active on Monday, said the official who is part of the team keeping a close watch on the movements of the animals. These animals are believed to take food once in three days, he added.
The new guests are still observing the new surroundings with curiosity, the official said.
On Monday morning, Freddy and Alton were seen running in a playful mood and drinking water often in their enclosure. The eight cheetahs were given their names in Namibia. "Right now we don't have plans to rename them," the official said. At the time of their release on Saturday, the big cats looked hesitant. But the initial hesitation appeared to be gradually fading on Monday, he said.
Asked about the Hindi name of a female cheetah 'Asha', which means hope, he said it seemed an Indian official might have written it on its cage while the big cats were being brought here. Veterinarians and experts from India and Namibia are keeping a close watch on the cheetahs in the quarantine enclosure where they will be kept for a month, he added. In his speech after releasing cheetahs, PM Modi had on Saturday cautioned that they need time to get used to their new surroundings before people can see them in the wild.
"Cheetahs are our guests; we should give them a few months to make Kuno National Park their home," he said. The KNP, spread over an area of 750 sq km, is situated on the northern side of Vindhyachal mountains.&nbsp;
—PTI

 Siblings Freddy and Alton, two of the eight cheetahs brought from Namibia, were seen frolicking in their quarantine enclosure in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno National Park on Monday, a day after all of them were served food for the first time since their arrival in India.

Cheetahs Enjoy 1st Meal In India, Appear Playful

San Francisco: The US space agency has collaborated with Google to help local governments improve their monitoring and prediction of air quality.
NASA and Google will develop advanced machine learning-based algorithms that link space data with Google Earth Engine data streams to generate high-resolution air quality maps in near real-time.
"We're thrilled about our partnership with NASA to make daily air quality more actionable at a local level," said Rebecca Moore, director at Google Earth, Earth Engine and Outreach at Google.
The results will create city-scale, near real-time estimation and forecasting of harmful pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter.
Google has incorporated two new NASA data sets into the Earth Engine Catalogue that are automatically updated daily.
These include data from the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System Composition Forecasts (GEOS-CF) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2).
These provide satellite observations of pollutants to help map and predict regions with poor air quality.
Harmful air pollution affects people and the environment and according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air pollution is responsible for about 7 million deaths worldwide each year.
"This partnership is a major step forward in integrating air pollution data from a range of critical sources, from ground-level observations to satellite data, into advanced machine learning algorithms," said Pawan Gupta, senior scientist with Universities Space Research Association (USRA) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
Environmental insights, like high resolution air quality maps, can be useful tools for cities and community organisations who can take action on climate and health in their neighbourhoods.
"This scientific research partnership with NASA will help us improve the resolution, validation and the usefulness of air quality maps in both space and time -- giving everyone more data for decisions towards cleaner air," said Moore. —IANS

The US space agency has collaborated with Google to help local governments improve their monitoring and prediction of air quality.

NASA, Google To Help Track Air Pollution At Local Level

Washington: Researchers have discovered a new extinct species of lizard-like reptile that belongs to the same ancient lineage as New Zealand's living tuatara. A team of scientists describe the new species Opisthiamimus gregori, which once inhabited Jurassic North America about 150 million years ago alongside dinosaurs like Stegosaurus and Allosaurus. In life, this prehistoric reptile would have been about 16 centimeters (about 6 inches) from nose to tail -- and would fit curled up in the palm of an adult human hand -- and likely survived on a diet of insects and other invertebrates.
"What's important about the tuatara is that it represents this enormous evolutionary story that we are lucky enough to catch in what is likely its closing act," Carrano said. "Even though it looks like a relatively simple lizard, it embodies an entire evolutionary epic going back more than 200 million years."
The discovery comes from a handful of specimens including an extraordinarily complete and well-preserved fossil skeleton excavated from a site centered around an Allosaurus nest in northern Wyoming's Morrison Formation. Further study of the find could help reveal why this animal's ancient order of reptiles were winnowed down from being diverse and numerous in the Jurassic to just New Zealand's tuatara surviving today.
The tuatara looks a bit like a particularly stout iguana, but the tuatara and its newly discovered relative are in fact not lizards at all. They are actually rhynchocephalians, an order that diverged from lizards at least 230 million years ago, Carrano said.
In their Jurassic heyday, rhynchocephalians were found nearly worldwide, came in sizes large and small, and filled ecological roles ranging from aquatic fish hunters to bulky plant munchers. But for reasons that still are not fully understood, rhynchocephalians all but disappeared as lizards and snakes grew to be the more common and more diverse reptiles across the globe.
This evolutionary chasm between lizards and rhynchocephalians helps explain the tuatara's odd features such as teeth fused to the jaw bone, a unique chewing motion that slides the lower jaw back and forth like a saw blade, a 100-year-plus lifespan and a tolerance for colder climates.
Following O. gregori's formal description, Carrano said the fossil has been added to the museum's collections where it will remain available for future study, perhaps one day helping researchers figure out why the tuatara is all that remains of the rhynchocephalians, while lizards are now found across the globe.
"These animals may have disappeared partly because of competition from lizards but perhaps also due to global shifts in climate and changing habitats," Carrano said. "It's fascinating when you have the dominance of one group giving way to another group over evolutionary time, and we still need more evidence to explain exactly what happened, but fossils like this one are how we will put it together."
The researchers named the new species after museum volunteer Joseph Gregor who spent hundreds of hours meticulously scraping and chiseling the bones from a block of stone that first caught museum fossil preparator Pete Kroehler's eye back in 2010.
"Pete is one of those people who has a kind of X-ray vision for this sort of thing," Carrano said. "He noticed two tiny specks of bone on the side of this block and marked it to be brought back with no real idea what was in it. As it turns out, he hit the jackpot."
The fossil is almost entirely complete, with the exception of the tail and parts of the hind legs. Carrano said that such a complete skeleton is rare for small prehistoric creatures like this because their frail bones were often destroyed either before they fossilized or as they emerge from an eroding rock formation in the present day. As a result, rhynchocephalians are mostly known to paleontologists from small fragments of their jaws and teeth.
After Kroehler, Gregor and others had freed as much of the tiny fossil from the rock as was practical given its fragility, the team, led by DeMar, set about scanning the fossil with high-resolution computerized tomography (CT), a method that uses multiple X-ray images from different angles to create a 3D representation of the specimen. The team used three separate CT scanning facilities, including one housed at the National Museum of Natural History, to capture everything they possibly could about the fossil.
Once the fossil's bones had been digitally rendered with accuracy smaller than a millimeter, DeMar set about reassembling the digitized bones of the skull, some of which were crushed, out of place or missing on one side, using software to eventually create a nearly complete 3D reconstruction. The reconstructed 3D skull now provides researchers an unprecedented look at this Jurassic-age reptile's head.
Given Opisthiamimus's diminutive size, tooth shape and rigid skull, it likely ate insects, said DeMar, adding that prey with harder shells such as beetles or water bugs might have also been on the menu. Broadly speaking, the new species looks quite a bit like a miniaturized version of its only surviving relative (tuataras are about five times longer).
"Such a complete specimen has huge potential for making comparisons with fossils collected in the future and for identifying or reclassifying specimens already sitting in a museum drawer somewhere," DeMar said. "With the 3D models we have, at some point we could also do studies that use software to look at this critter's jaw mechanics." —ANI

Researchers have discovered a new extinct species of lizard-like reptile that belongs to the same ancient lineage as New Zealand's living tuatara.

Discovery Of Extinct Prehistoric Reptile That Lived Among Dinosaurs: Researchers

New Delhi (The Hawk): A three-day international conference ANGAN 2022 (Augmenting Nature by Green Affordable New-habitat), second edition, titled “Making the Zero-Carbon Transition in Buildings” began on 14th September, 2022. Shri Alok Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Power inaugurated the conference. Shri Ajay Tiwary, Additional Secretary Ministry of Power also attended the event today. ANGAN 2.0, which is being organised by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power, in collaboration with Swiss Agency for Development &amp; Cooperation (SDC) under the Indo-Swiss Building Energy Efficiency Project (BEEP).
Around 75 eminent speakers, including Dr Ajay Mathur, Director General, International Solar Alliance, Dr Brian Motherway, Head of Energy Efficiency, International Energy Agency, Dr Richard de Dear, Professor at The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, representing more than 15 countries and international organisations, have gathered to debate and discuss issues related to building energy efficiency and reducing carbon emission from buildings in 8 plenary and 8 thematic sessions.
The conference was graced by dignitaries of international organizations. Jonathan Demenge, Head of Cooperation, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Dr Brian Motherway, Head of Energy efficiency, International Energy Agency and Dr. Ralf Heckner, Ambassador of Switzerland to India and Bhutan, Embassy of Switzerland also participated in the conference. The winners of the BEE’s 1st National Energy Efficiency Roadmap for Movement towards Affordable and Natural habitat (NEERMAN) Awards were felicitated today. These awards are institutionalised with the objective to acknowledge and encourage exemplary building designs complying with BEE’s Eco-Niwas Samhita (ENS) and Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC). The NEERMAN award has seen participation of building projects across the country from Jammu &amp; Kashmir to Andaman &amp; Nicobar Islands. More than 500 delegates consisting of Architects, Engineers, Builders, building material industries, Teachers, Students, Researchers, central and state government officials are attending the conference.
The objective of this conference is to promote a healthy ecosystem which was mentioned at COP 26 in Glasgow by the Prime Minister Shri Narender Modi on LiFE (Lifestyle And Environment) and Panchamrit, aiming to make India Net Zero by 2070. This conference also hosts an exhibition of various low carbon products, technologies and innovations applicable in the building sector.
Several CEOs of companies offering innovative technologies and solutions for energy-efficient and low-carbon buildings addressed the conference and around 20 companies showcased their products and services which included, low-carbon building materials, external movable shading systems, energy-efficient space cooling technologies in the exhibition accompanying the conference. This conference cum exhibition is expected to foster national and international strategic collaboration, partnership, network and information exchange to promote low carbon, energy efficient habitat. The conference witnessed deliberation on critical issues like “Unlocking Finance for Low-Carbon Buildings, “Thermal Comfort and Climate Resilience in Residential buildings”. The Conference had special sessions on “Women in the Resource Efficiency Conversation”.
Background:
Indo-Swiss Building Energy Efficiency Project (BEEP) is a collaborative project between the Government of India and the Government of Switzerland. Over this period, BEEP has provided technical support to BEE in the formulation of Eco-Niwas Samhita (energy conservation building code for residential buildings), design of around 50 buildings and trained more than 5000 building sector professionals.

A three-day international conference ANGAN 2022 (Augmenting Nature by Green Affordable New-habitat), second edition, titled “Making the Zero-Carbon Transition in Buildings” began on 14th September, 2022.  Shri Alok Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of Power inaugurated the conference. Shri Ajay Tiwary, Additional Secretary Ministry of Power also attended the event today. ANGAN 2.0, which is being organised by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power, in collaboration with Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation (SDC) under the Indo-Swiss Building Energy Efficiency Project (BEEP).

‘ANGAN 2022’ Int'l Conference 'Making The Zero-Carbon Transition In Buildings' Held 

New Delhi: Unprecedented floods in Bangladesh followed by Assam floods, extremely heavy rain in Madhya Pradesh, parts of Rajasthan and Bengaluru in India, and the Pakistan deluge. Climate experts say all calamities have shown how the quantum of extreme events has increased exponentially in South Asia.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last year warned about the increase in extreme weather events across South Asia in the coming years if the emissions continue to be unchecked.
Asian urban areas are considered high-risk locations from projected climate change, extreme events, unplanned urbanisation and rapid land-use change, an expert told IANS. With increasing urbanisation, the cities are at greater risk as the volume of damage in terms of loss of human lives, property damage and economic losses are higher than in the rural areas. Cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Delhi and Chennai are home to millions of people and so high is the climate risk.
Studies say Asia is home to 54 per cent of the world's urban population, and by 2050, 64 per cent of Asia's 3.3 billion people will be living in cities. Asia is also home to the world's largest urban agglomerations: Tokyo (37 million inhabitants), New Delhi (29 million) and Shanghai (26 million) are the top three with Cairo, Mumbai, Beijing and Dhaka home to nearly 20 million people each.
By 2028, New Delhi is projected to become the most populous city in the world. In the warming environment, urban flooding is a major threat to the cities and towns. Regional ecological challenges coupled with climatic variability have aggravated flood risks. Urban flooding that was primarily a concern of municipal and environmental governance has now attained the status of 'disaster'.
What is urban flooding?
Urban flooding can be defined as a combination of two factors, mismanagement of urban planning and climate change impacts which are intensifying and becoming more frequent.
In extreme cases urban floods can result in disasters that set back urban development by years or even decades.
According to the IPCC, warming from 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius will increase extreme precipitation events across Asia, especially over East and South Asia. Extreme rainfall has direct and increasing consequences on urban flooding risk, which is further exacerbated by urbanisation trends that reduce land permeability, divert water flow and disrupt watersheds.
"Urbanisation across the city continues to be unchecked, maximising on the most the city has. Bengaluru is doing nothing for adaptation. Political system and will is not aligned with climate resilient policy. In fact, there has been no political stability to battle climate risk as 15 chief ministers have changed in the last 20 years," said Anjal Prakash, Research Director and Adjunct Professor, Bharti School of Public Policy, Indian School of Business and IPCC author. According to the IPCC, urban climate resilient development is observed to be more effective if it is responsive to regional and local land use development and adaptation gaps, and addresses the underlying drivers of vulnerability.
Several states across India are now working towards a climate action plan to fight climate change impacts. Mumbai has recently come out with one, aiming to reduce emissions.
Responding to the urgency, Aarti Khosla, Director, Climate Trends, told IANS, "People are increasingly understanding the implications of climate change and how these events are affecting them in real time now.
"Climate change will not only worsen these events but compounding disasters will destabilise growth and local governments. If decision makers fail to bring an integrated, inclusive planning to India's urban development, it will not only be counterproductive to the GDP linked development we aim for, but also lose out on investment opportunities to develop future-ready cities which have the adaptive capacity for increasing populations." —IANS

Unprecedented floods in Bangladesh followed by Assam floods, extremely heavy rain in Madhya Pradesh, parts of Rajasthan and Bengaluru in India, and the Pakistan deluge. Climate experts say all calamities have shown how the quantum of extreme events has increased exponentially in South Asia.

Cities Must Adapt To Climate Change To Prevent Unprecedented Flooding

Washington: Soil microbes can have a great impact on the spread of harmful invasive species as they can either hinder or facilitate the plant's growth. Researchers studied the role of soil microbiota in the success of garden lupine, which is an invasive species in the Finnish nature.
Lupinus polyphyllus, commonly known as the garden lupine, is a perennial herb native to North America. It was brought to Europe as an ornamental plant, but it escaped the gardens and is now considered an invasive species in many countries, including Finland. What makes the garden lupine interesting and a successful invading species are the root nodule bacteria which convert atmospheric nitrogen for the plant's use. Nitrogen is needed for growth and in producing phytochemical compounds against herbivores.
"This symbiosis with bacteria benefits the garden lupine especially in nutrient-poor environments, such as sandy roadsides, where the plant often grows in abundance. This partly explains why garden lupine has managed to take up so much space in nutrient-poor areas where it can outgrow its local competitors that do not have such a symbiotic association with bacteria," explains Adjunct Professor Satu Ramula from the Department of Biology at the University of Turku, Finland.
Soil microbiota can also affect the smell of the plant
The researchers planted garden lupines originating from North American and Finnish populations in nutrient-poor soil containing soil microbes from local lupine populations or in soil where the amount of microbes had been reduced.
The researchers discovered that, regardless of their country of origin, the garden lupines benefited from the soil microbes. The plants grew larger than the ones in the control group which had less soil microbes in their medium. "In addition to growth, the soil microbes affected the smell of individual plants by altering the composition of the volatile organic compounds emitted by the leaves. Especially the plants that grew in the medium containing natural soil microbes produced volatiles that earlier studies have proven to act as deterrents to snails," says Postdoctoral Researcher Aino Kalske.
In order to study how the plant defended itself against herbivores, the researchers offered the plants' leaves to copse snails, the garden lupine's natural enemy. The experiment conducted in a laboratory setting provided surprising results. The plants' defence against herbivores depended on the soil microbes in the growth medium.
"The copse snails ate less of the Finnish garden lupines than those originating from the North American populations when both plants had been grown in with the natural soil microbes. In plants that had been grown with reduced soil microbiota, we observed no differences in leaf consumption between the populations of different origins," describes Kalske.
The results indicate that soil microbiota has a larger impact than previously thought on plants as well as on the organisms depending on them. Microbes not only contribute to the plants' growth but also to their defence against herbivores. Soil microbiota is extremely abundant and just a tea spoon of soil can contain millions of microbes. However, the composition of the microbiota varies according to the local flora and soil type.
The researchers are currently studying whether the invasion success of the garden lupine is associated with soil microbes in nature. —ANI

Soil microbes can have a great impact on the spread of harmful invasive species as they can either hinder or facilitate the plant's growth. Researchers studied the role of soil microbiota in the success of garden lupine, which is an invasive species in the Finnish nature.

Soil Microbiota Can Boost Growth Of Invasive Plant Species, Provide Defence Against Herbivores

Washington: Let's pretend it's the Late Cretaceous, roughly 66 to 100 million years ago. We've got dinosaurs roaming the land and odd-looking early species of birds, although the shark as we know it is already swimming in the prehistoric oceans which cover 82% of Earth. Redwood trees and other conifers are making their debut, as are roses and flowering plants, and with them come bees, termites and ants. Most of all, it's warm, volcanically active and humid all over the place with not an ice sheet in sight.
Except, according to a group of scientists from UC Santa Barbara, University of Oregon and University of Manitoba, icy conditions did exist in the region of the South Pole. "And it wasn't just a single-valley glacier," said UCSB geologist John Cottle, "it was probably multiple glaciers or a large ice sheet." Contrary to our widely held picture of the Late Cretaceous as "hot everywhere," he said, there's evidence that polar ice existed during that period, even at the height of global greenhouse conditions.
The geologists' study is published in the journal Nature Communications.
A Prehistoric Puzzle
Fast-forward to today. Let's pretend we're in Antarctica. It's chilly, it's barren, and we're standing near a large grouping of exposed glassy rock along the Transantarctic Mountains, adjacent to the Ross Ice Shelf, called the Butcher Ridge Igneous Complex (BRIC).
"I actually heard about these rocks when I was a grad student 20 or so years ago, and they're just really weird," Cottle said. Remote, even by today's Antarctic exploration standards, the BRIC is unusual because the rocks' composition and formation are uncharacteristic of nearby rock formations, with, among other things, large amounts of glass and layered alteration that indicates significant physical, chemical or environmental events that changed their mineral composition.
Cottle got the chance to finally sample the BRIC on a recent expedition, and in the process of analyzing how it was formed, he and his team encountered an "unusually large amount of water." "So you have a really hot rock that interacts with water, and as it cools, incorporates it into the glass," he said. "If you look at the composition, then you can tell something about where that water came from. It can exist as hydroxyl, which tells you that it probably came from the magma, or it could be molecular, which means it is probably external."
What they were expecting to see was that the alteration in the rock was caused by the water already in the magma as it cooled. What they found instead was a record of a climate process that was thought not to have existed at the time.
In their spectroscopic analysis of the samples, the researchers determined that while some of the water indeed originated with magma as it plumed upward from Earth's interior, as the molten rock cooled into glass just beneath the Earth's surface, it also incorporated groundwater.
"We determined that most of the water in these rocks is externally derived," Cottle said. "We then measured the oxygen and hydrogen isotopic composition of the water and it matches very well to the composition of Antarctic snow and ice."
To lock in their result, Cottle and team also conducted argon-argon geochronology to date the rock and its alteration.
"The problem is, these rocks are Jurassic, so about 183 million years old," he said. "So when you measure the alteration, what you don't know is when that happened." They were able to recover the age of the rock (Jurassic), but also found a younger age (Cretaceous). "So when these rocks cooled and were altered," he continued, "it also reset the argon isotope as well, and you can match the age of the alteration to the composition of the alteration."
There are other, similar volcanic rocks roughly 700 km north of the BRIC that also have a Cretaceous alteration age, indicating that polar glaciation might have been regionally extensive in Antarctica during that time. "What we'd like to do is go to other places in Antarctica and see if we can determine the scale of the glaciation, if we recover the same results that we've already found," he said.
Finding evidence of large ice sheets dating back to the Cretaceous might not alter our general picture of a hot and humid Earth at that time, Cottle said, "but we would have to think about the Cretaceous and Antarctica quite differently than we do now."
Research in this study was also conducted by Demian A. Nelson (lead author) of UCSB, Ilya N. Bindeman at the University of Oregon and Alfredo Camacho at the University of Manitoba. —ANI

 Let's pretend it's the Late Cretaceous, roughly 66 to 100 million years ago. We've got dinosaurs roaming the land and odd-looking early species of birds, although the shark as we know it is already swimming in the prehistoric oceans which cover 82% of Earth.

Scientists Uncover Evidence That The Late Cretaceous Hosted Icy Conditions In Antarctica

London: Scientists have discovered a new mechanism through which very small pollutant particles in the air may trigger lung cancer in people who have never smoked,
Particles linked to climate change also promote cancerous changes in airway cells, they found, paving the way to new approaches for lung cancer prevention and treatment.
Scientists of the Francis Crick Institute and University College London, funded by Cancer Research UK, presented the data at the 'ESMO Congress 2022'.
According to them, the particles which are typically found in vehicle exhaust and smoke from fossil fuels, are associated with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) risk, accounting for over 250,000 lung cancer deaths globally per year.
"The same particles in the air that derive from the combustion of fossil fuels, exacerbating climate change, are directly impacting human health via an important and previously overlooked cancer-causing mechanism in lung cells," they informed.
The risk of lung cancer from air pollution is lower than from smoking, "but we have no control over what we all breathe".
"Globally, more people are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution than to toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke, and these new data link the importance of addressing climate health to improving human health," said Charles Swanton from the Francis Crick Institute.
The new findings are based on human and laboratory research on mutations in a gene called EGFR which are seen in about half of people with lung cancer who have never smoked.
In a study of nearly half a million people living in England, South Korea and Taiwan, exposure to increasing concentrations of airborne particulate matter (PM) 2.5 micrometres (Im) in diameter was linked to increased risk of NSCLC with EGFR mutations.
In the laboratory studies, scientists showed that the same pollutant particles (PM2.5) promoted rapid changes in airway cells which had mutations in EGFR and in another gene linked to lung cancer called KRAS, driving them towards a cancer stem cell like state.
"We found that driver mutations in EGFR and KRAS genes, commonly found in lung cancers, are actually present in normal lung tissue and are a likely consequence of ageing," said Swanton.
However, when lung cells with these mutations were exposed to air pollutants, "we saw more cancers and these occurred more quickly than when lung cells with these mutations were not exposed to pollutants", suggesting that air pollution promotes the initiation of lung cancer in cells harbouring driver gene mutations.
"The next step is to discover why some lung cells with mutations become cancerous when exposed to pollutants while others don't," said Swanton.
Tony Mok from Chinese University of Hong Kong, who was not involved in the study, said that the research is intriguing and exciting.
"It means that we can ask whether, in the future, it will be possible to use lung scans to look for pre-cancerous lesions in the lungs and try to reverse them with medicines such as interleukin-1I inhibitors," said Mok.
"We don't yet know whether it will be possible to use highly sensitive EGFR profiling on blood or other samples to find non-smokers who are predisposed to lung cancer and may benefit from lung scanning, so discussions are still very speculative," he added. —IANS

Scientists have discovered a new mechanism through which very small pollutant particles in the air may trigger lung cancer in people who have never smoked,

Air Pollution May Trigger Lung Cancer In Non-Smokers: Scientists

Washington: A study has revealed that climate change is affecting drinking water quality.
The study was published in the journal, "Water Research".
Heat waves, drought, floods, forest fires - the consequences of climate change are increasing and are changing our environment. A prime example is the countryside in the catchment area for the Rappbode reservoir in the eastern Harz region. This is the largest drinking water reservoir in Germany and provides drinking water for roughly one million people. Long periods of drought over the years from 2015 to 2020 have so severely weakened the tree population in the Harz region that parasites such as bark beetles have been able to propagate. This further exacerbated the effect: The trees were further damaged and quickly died off. "Over the past four years, the Rappbode catchment area, characterized by conifers, primarily spruce, has lost over 50 percent of its forest," says UFZ hydrologist and last author Prof. Michael Rode. "This massive forest dieback is advancing rapidly and is dramatic. This will have consequences for the drinking water reservoir."
Forests play a key role in the water cycle. They filter the water and bind nutrients and are therefore necessary for good water quality. The fewer nutrients - i.e. nitrogen or phosphorous compounds - contained in reservoir water, the better it is for drinking water treatment. "This makes it more difficult for algae to develop, making drinking water treatment in the waterworks more cost-effective and easier," explains UFZ lake researcher and co-author Dr. Karsten Rinke. "Nutrient management in water conservation areas is therefore very important. Over the past decades, long-term concepts with close cooperation between forest and water management have advanced the development of large areas of forest in the Rappbode reservoir catchment area." The rapid forest decline in the eastern Harz region is now a matter of grave concern for the reservoir and waterworks operators.
Spurred by this development, the UFZ team has investigated the effects of climate-induced deforestation on reservoir water quality in their model study. This study was based on data from the TERENO (Terrestrial Environmental Observatories) environmental observatory network, in which the UFZ is a participant with the Harz/Central German Lowland Observatory. "We were able to access environmental data from a period of over ten years, providing us with a solid set of data," says Dr. Xiangzhen Kong, also a UFZ environmental scientist and lead author of the study. The team used data from the international ISIMIP project (Inter-sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project) to predict future climate changes. "We first fed these data into a model in order to estimate the climate-related effects on the nutrient balance in the catchment area," explains Kong. "The resulting data were then processed in a reservoir ecosystem model with which we were able to determine the effects of different deforestation scenarios on the predicted water quality for 2035.
The Rappbode reservoir is supplied by three different catchment areas, two of which were included in the study. "The Hassel catchment area is characterized by agriculture, while that of the Rappbode is predominantly forest - at least that was the case before the spruce forests died," says Kong. Before the water from the two catchment area flows into the large Rappbode reservoir, it is first retained by an upstream pre-dam. The agricultural influence results in a significantly higher nutrient content in the water in the Hassel pre-dam than that in the Rappbode pre-dam. "We were able to demonstrate that, for an anticipated deforestation of up to 80 percent, the Rappbode predam will experience an 85 percent increase in dissolved phosphorus concentration and a more than 120 percent increase in nitrogen concentration within only 15 years. The Rappbode pre-dam will thus reach nearly the same nutrient levels as the Hassel pre-dam," says Kong. This will result in a more than 80 percent increase in diatoms and more than 200 percent increase in green algae in the Rappbode pre-dam. These results highlight the coming necessity for a wide range of adaptations in drinking water management. "Nutrient input to reservoir catchment areas should be reduced even more than previously, reforestation projects with drought-resistant tree species should be further promoted and waterworks should be adapted to the impending developments with selective water removal strategies," says Rode. "And what remains important and must be further increased: extensive, granular environmental monitoring." The results for the Rappbode reservoir can be applied to other reservoir catchment areas in similar regions. "Forest dieback as an indirect consequence of climate change has a more pronounced effect on reservoir water quality than direct effects of climate change such as elevated water temperature. We were actually surprised by the extent of this effect", says Kong. —ANI

A study has revealed that climate change is affecting drinking water quality.